Video transcript

Hello. It’s Kristina Halvorson. Happy holidays. I am delighted to be participating once again in GatherContent’s holiday content strategy advent calendar. As I have been wrangling with what to bring to the calendar this year I kind of kept coming back around to something that is pretty simple and straight forward but it’s what’s in my heart so this is what I’m going to share.

You know every year we host Confab, the content strategy conference and we’ve done three events every year and this year we did our very last Confab Higher Ed and we had a lot of people with a lot of feelings about that because they said, you know, this is really the only place that I can come where I can talk to others who understand what I go through in the workplace and who I can share kind of war stories with and successes and just really connect with these professionals in a way that I can’t connect with professionals anywhere else and you know, it’s like that camp has closed and that was really hard. It was a hard business decision for us to make. But the hardest thing was the idea that we were taking away this core community for people who’d really come to depend on it, that really sucks.

“This is really the only place that I can come where I can talk to others who understand what I go through in the workplace and who I can share kind of war stories with and successes.”

And so what I’ve been thinking about is gosh, I think that from a professional standpoint, that kind of community is so important to everyone. I mean if you’re going to be invested in your work, feel supported in your work, feel like you are keeping up with what’s next, or that you’re not alone in sort of fearing or being overwhelmed by what’s next for content, she said, not talking about herself at all, that you need those connections, that you need that community.

And so here’s my request to you, or my challenge, or my encouragement this holiday season. Which is that, if you have a colleague or a friend that you have met through some kind of content strategy connection, whether it is a conference or an online group, a local meet-up, you know a LinkedIn here making this connection, sharing this connection, whatever. I want to encourage you to reach out to that person and to reconnect with them and to, you know, if they’re in town, go grab a cup of coffee. If they’re online, have a Slack conversation with them or do Skype wine, which is one of my favourite ways of reconnecting with people.

“If you have a colleague or a friend that you have met through some kind of content strategy connection … I want to encourage you to reach out to that person and to reconnect with them.”

Just catch up. Just see what’s going on with work, see what good things are happening, see what challenging things are happening. Just kind of, you know, reconnect, chat and remind yourself that there’s a whole community of content strategists and professionals, people doing important content work who want to talk to you and want to be connected and that you are not alone in the work that you’re doing and the challenges that you’re facing and that there are other people who really want to celebrate their successes that you achieve as well.

So go find that person that you’ve met or connected with. Let them know on Twitter or Facebook or wherever that their work or their friendship means something to you. And if you feel that you don’t have that connection go join the Facebook content strategy group, join the LinkedIn content strategy group. Look for the content strategy hashtag, although some of that is a little bit of a dumpster fire. Anyway, you can find some good stuff in there and just, you know, make that connection.

“Look for the content strategy hashtag, although some of that is a little bit of a dumpster fire!”

It’s the holidays. It’s time to connect. It’s time to tell people that they mean something to you. So that’s what I have for you this holiday season. Yay content strategy. Yay content strategists. You’re all doing such amazing wonderful work, watching your contributions to the field continue to unfold every day is really extraordinary and as a practicing content strategist myself I so very much appreciate all the knowledge share that goes on. So that’s it. I don’t have any fancy tools or papers to show you, but I have love in my heart sharing with you this holiday season. So happy holidays to you and yours.

About Kristina

Kristina Halvorson is the CEO and founder of Brain Traffic, a world-renowned content strategy consultancy. Brain Traffic delivers content strategy, large-scale audits, and digital content development to clients around the world. Their team of strategists includes some of the best-known names in the content strategy community, and their work continues to redefine and evolve industry best practices.

Published in 2009, Kristina’s book Content Strategy for the Web (1st edition) was, at the time, the only book published on the topic. Today, Content Strategy for the Web is considered the “gold standard” for content strategy literature and is credited with creating the foundation for what is now a rapidly-evolving industry.

Kristina is the founder of Confab, the first U.S. conference dedicated to the topic of content strategy. The conference debuted in May of 2011, selling out several months in advance and attracting attendees from all over the world. She also regularly conducts online seminars about content strategy and works closely with Fortune 500 companies as both a speaker and consultant.

Free Online Masterclass

Content Strategy & Delivery

Anyone who struggles with content consistency and efficiency—and who doesn't?—will greatly benefit from this course. If you want to get smarter about content planning, creation and delivery, start here.

About the Author

Robert Mills

Head of Content, GatherContent

Rob is Head of Content at GatherContent. He is a journalism graduate and has previously worked as Studio Manager and Head of Content for a design agency and as an Audience Research Executive for the BBC. He’s a published author and regular contributor to industry publications including Net Magazine, Smashing Magazine, 24 Ways,WebTuts+, UX Matters , UX Booth and Content Marketing Institute. On occasion Rob speaks about content strategy and ContentOps at leading industry events.